Love out of the Framework
by Tr3kkieNovelist
Summary: Single parents try to deal with balancing a job, raising kids, and trying to have a love life. An AU Philinda story.


A/N: I got the idea for this story from a picture I saw online of Phil, Melinda, Daisy, and Clint Barton. It got me on a writing stint with the idea. So here it goes. All feedback and criticism is much appreciated. Thank you and hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Chapter 1

"Clint, you better hurry up and eat your breakfast, or you'll be late for the bus," Melinda warned as she stuffed a pack lunch into a Robin Hood backpack.

"Okay, okay, I'm done," Clint said as a bus beeped its horn outside of the house, "The bus is here. Bye, Mom, love you."

Melinda stood at the door as he pulled on his shoes and grabbed his bag before she bent down to kiss his forehead, "Love you too, baobei. Have a good day at school!"

With that her son was out the door, she watched through the windows on the bus how he walked to the back and sat with his friends, Steve and Bruce. Closing the door, Melinda hurriedly grabbed her thermos of tea and her messenger bag before she locked the house up and got in her car to go to work. She reached her office right on time as usual, greeting her secretary, Elena Rodriguez, before she went into her office and went through her daily routine of turning her computer on, organizing her work on her desk, and checking her schedule for the day. At the moment, aside from some small jobs she had, Melinda had a major project going on that she was collaborating with another company on. The city council had commissioned for a new office building to be built, something about wanting to spruce up the neighborhood it was in and some other politics that Melinda didn't really care about. She was used to projects like these and actually enjoyed them because they allowed her free reign to do as she wanted as long as it was within the agreed upon budget and met all the stipulations put in place. Plus, she got to work alone without someone hindering her creativity, or not doing their share of the work. However, since the city council gave a ridiculously short time span in which to complete the project, she was forced to work with a designer from a company that the council chose. It had been a couple of weeks since the building was commissioned, so Melinda was almost finished designing the lay out of the building, but today she had to finally meet her co-collaborator to discuss what to do with the inside of the building. She had been communicating with the designer via email, but it was sporadically so and that annoyed Melinda because she didn't want to deal with some corporate-wanna-be who thinks he knows everything, yet does no work. The project needed to be done by mid-July, which was about a month away, and she didn't want to be stuck at the office till late at night; she had a life, a son she needed to take care of. That's why when the time came to meet the designer came, she begrudgingly gathered her things and drove to the construction site. She felt she was in for a long day.

Phil was in a panic. Skye had been sick the past week, so he tried to take as much time he could to take care of her. She finally felt better this morning, but he had slept through his alarm due to the odd hours he had from trying to get some work done and getting up at crazy hours of the night to give his daughter her medicine. While his daughter was bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to go back to preschool, Phil was a sleep-deprived mess. He quickly got Skye dressed and at the table eating cereal so he could get ready. After he showered and changed, he came back downstairs to find a wet Skye and a puddle of milk. She just looked at her daddy, giving him a sorry and puppy dog eyes. Blowing a breath in frustration, Phil ran back upstairs to grab Skye a new shirt to change into, while he cleaned the mess up. After he was done, he glanced at the clock to see they were late causing him to run to get his bag, but not before he stubbed his toe on the dining table, causing him to mutter a slew of curses.

He had received a big project a couple of weeks back, right before Skye had been sick, and this was very important not only for him, but for his company if they were going to expand their business. He was supposed to collaborate on the project with someone from some other company that was hired, and Phil had been ready to start on the project, but then Skye had to catch the flu that had been going around her preschool. He felt bad for the person he had to work with because he had been MIA for a while and must think he's some loser who can't do any work. Nonetheless, he was able to get some work done, not a lot, but some done while he took time off. However, with the morning he was having, Phil just wanted to give up, not go into work at all and keep his daughter away from that preschool, but life had other plans, or rather the city council did. Now he had a meeting with the architect from the other company he was working with and he couldn't take anymore time off, so Skye was gonna have to return to preschool since he had no one else to care for her.

Getting back to the task at hand, Phil was currently stuffing papers into his briefcase and grabbing Skye to rush out the door. He dropped Skye off with an apology for being a half hour late and then sped off to his job. He was 45 minutes late, but at least he made it. His boss was one of those no nonsense type of guys, but liked Phil and understood his plight, so he wouldn't be harshly penalized for this infraction. The most he would get would be a one-eyed glare and a curt "Get your ass together, Coulson. Can't let these other people think I favor you, or that they can do the same thing and get away with it. Now get your ass back to work, I don't pay you to sit around all day and do nothing!"

Phil was only able to sit down at his desk for a moment before his secretary, Bobbi, reminded him of his meeting with the architect in 15 minutes at the construction site that was a half hour away. Practically running out the door, Phil nearly forgot his briefcase if it wasn't for his secretary. God help him, he thought.

Melinda had been at the construction site for the past 15 minutes for the designer to show, she called his office only to be told by his secretary that he was on his way. Looking at her watch, she was about to call it a quits and leave, when she could see a man running towards her in the distance. As he came closer, she could tell he had brown hair and was wearing a suit. When he got a few feet from her, he stopped running to calmly walk towards her.

He stuck out his hand and introduced himself, "My name's Phil Coulson, I'm with SHIELD. I would like to apologize for being so late my . . ." he trailed off when he noticed that the pretty woman in front of him was giving him a frosty glare and was not going to shake his hand.

Melinda continued to glare at him as she introduced herself, "Melinda May of Stark Industries. For the record, I do not care why you are late, but know that I have other appointments to get to, Mr. Coulson. I don't have time for games, not with a project like this due soon, so do not be late ever again. Do I make myself clear?"

Phil was flabbergasted by this woman's bluntness, but quickly became angry because who was she to talk to him like that. Ms. Uptight Robot must really have her wiring mixed up if she thought she could talk to him like that. Turning off the polite smile he had on and replacing it with a hard glare to match hers, he replied," Look, lady . . ."

"Ms. May," came Melinda's curt interjection.

"Ms. May, look I understand that I was considerably late and made you wait a long time, but I apologized sincerely. . ."

Melinda's ire raised some more as she interrupted with, "An apology doesn't solve everything, Mr. Coulson."

"It does when the apology is sincere and I was sincere. Even so, you have no right to yell at or belittle me because I was a late. Why don't you try taking the stick out of your butt once in a while and maybe then you can show some respect to others!" Phil was livid by this point, breathing heavily after his tirade.

Melinda just stood with her glare on full death mode, her hands at her sides in tight fists, and she was breathing heavily as well. The tension that surrounded them was so tangible you could cut it. The world seemed to stop around them for a moment as they both had a glare off in the middle of the construction site. Neither willing to back off.

Hey, again. Sorry for any mistakes, I proofread it, but still might be a few mistakes. Hope you liked, and if so please leave a comment (even if you didn't like it), like always constructive criticism is always helpful.

P.S. I feel like I imagined this chapter differently than I wrote it, I can't seem to get what I want in my head on paper, so please bear with me :)


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